The Self-Mastery "Muscle Group"
As I said in an earlier post, each of the Four Primary Virtues (aka Cardinal Virtues) is more like a muscle group, composed of a number of more specific Subsidiary Virtues. Remember, virtues are not some abstract principle like values. Virtues are real habits of measurable skillfulness that become deep traits.
The 4th “Muscle Group”: Self-Mastery
Self-Mastery is the strength of character that is the habit of rightly directing your emotions, feelings, and desires. It is the virtue that overcomes both over-indulgence and insensitivity.
You have self-mastery if you desire and enjoy the right kind of pleasures in the appropriate way and in the right amount. In other words, it is the habit of taking appropriate measure of things according to circumstance. This necessarily involves sincerity and integrity in your behavior and actions.
The Specific “Muscles”
The Subsidiary Virtues of Self-Mastery are:
Healthy Diet: This is the habit of right enjoyment of food. It is the habit of eating a healthy and balanced diet of nutritious food, in the proper quantity, and appropriate enjoyment of the taste and quality of your food. It is the balance opposed to both insensitivity to good food and over-indulgence in terms of quantity or delicacy.
Substance Moderation: This is the habit of appropriate enjoyment of alcoholic beverages, the balance between total abstinence and drinking to get drunk. The same also applies to other substances such as caffeine and nicotine.
Appropriate Boundaries: This is the habit of appropriately directing sexual desires and feelings. It is the balanced ordering of desire that opposes repression and emotional frigidity as well as lust and seduction.
Calm Attentiveness: This is the habit of appropriately directing your emotional responses in the face of potential offense or affliction. It is the proper balance of assertiveness and tranquility that opposes both inordinate anger and spinelessness.
Reasonableness: This is the habit of appropriate leniency towards others, especially subordinates. It is the right balance which opposes both cruelty and permissiveness.
Modesty: This is the habit of rightly directing both your own attentiveness and your desire for the attention of others. It deals largely with appropriateness regarding your own actions.
Humility: This is the habit of knowing and becoming who you really are. True humility is the authenticity to recognize your dependence on God and others, and that you are made for great and noble things. In a word, true humility is authenticity — the habit of living in the truth. It is opposed to both narcissism and pride on the one hand, and self-degradation on the other.
Diligence: This is the habit of keeping your attention focused on important things and open to a spirit of wonder and awe. It is the appropriate directing of your mind which opposes ignorance and superficiality as well as the gluttonous consumption of information.
Appropriate Behavior: This is the habit of behaving appropriately in varying circumstances, opposed to excessive formality or finicky behavior on the one hand, and unprofessionalism or immaturity on the other.
Good Sense of Humor/Wittiness: This is the habit of making enjoyable conversation through the clever presentation of the irony in life. Wittiness is the skill of speaking appropriately to the circumstances, and is opposed to both excessive or uncouth joking and to a somber lack of humor.
Appropriate Attire: This is the habit of dressing appropriately to the circumstances: formality in formal situations and casual attire in informal situations. In other words, it is the habit of dressing for the occasion – whether work, play, dance, or dinner. It means paying enough attention to maintaining your appearance, without vanity or preening.